


Snow in New York Some Blue December

by thought



Series: You don't have to go home in a straight line [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Agender Character, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Aromantic Character, F/F, canon character of colour, canon neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:23:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5427731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>December 2002: Sameen Shaw is either starring in a romantic comedy or a stalker horror film. She's not sure which would be worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow in New York Some Blue December

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a combination of a very canon divergent au and a flat-out au-- parts are just shifted canon, other parts are entirely different from the show. Just... roll with it.  
> This is also super super self-indulgent, as well as getting dangerously close to being clasified holiday fluf.

Someone knocks on their door at eleven-thirty Wednesday night. They're in the living room studying because med school with a joint degree in public health, or a fast-tracked PHD in information management and analytics don't allow room for things like sleep or a social life. Shaw's computer is set up closer to the door, so she dives for the light switch to turn out the overhead lights while Cole stretches over to turn off the CD player. They wait in held-breath silence, staring intently at the door in the glow of the computer monitors.

The knock comes again. Shaw bangs her head gently against the wall.

"We're not home," Cole whispers, glaring intently at the door. "We're not home. We're not home. Go find someone else."

For a third time, someone knocks at their door.

"Eventually they'll go away," Shaw says, sitting back down. "It's probably drunk teenagers. Or Mr. Dabrowski's dementia's acting up again and he thinks his sister still lives here."

They try to go back to studying. The knocking continues. Finally Shaw slams her book down and stomps over to the door. Cole follows, grabbing the baseball bat off the coffee table.

Shaw yanks open the door. "What?!"

"Michael," says the dude outside the door. "Michael Cole, do you want to come hack the NSA?" He looks like a typical frat bro, except he's wearing a Star Trek shirt and doesn't smell like Axe.

"Um," Cole says from behind her. Shaw glares harder. "No?"

"You don't recognize me, do you?" Trek bro asks.

"Greenfield," Cole says. "You were in one of my seminars last year, but you disappeared half way through the semester. How do you know where I live?"

"You're welcome," someone else says. Shaw' hadn't noticed the other kid standing behind Greenfield. And she does mean kid. He's... Japanese, at a guess, and also probably sixteen at the oldest.

"I could've done it myself, I was just a little busy making the kitchen not-on-fire."

"Hey," Shaw says sharply. "I don't really give a shit which one of you stalked him. He's not interested, and we're kind of busy. So fuck off."

"Rude," a third person says, because the hallway outside the door is apparently a fucking clown car. She's tall as fuck and nearing unhealthily skinny. The jeans and leather jacket and shiny hair are a decent attempt to blend in as a normal human being, but then Shaw notices she's wearing the fucking 'ten kinds of people in the world' shirt that seems to be standard uniform for snobby geek assholes, and also her left eyebrow appears to be burned off. "We drove all the way across the city and this is the kind of hospitality we're shown?"

"Look, guys," Cole says, stepping up beside Shaw. "I'm really not interested in whatever incredibly illegal prank war or bet you've got going on, and I've got two hundred second year Java exams to grade by tomorrow night, so..."

"That means 'fuck off'," Shaw provides, helpfully, when not one of the three intruders make any move to leave.

"It's not a game," the woman says. "This isn't some student prank war gotten out-of-hand."

"For that we'd actually, you know, have to be students," Greenfield says dryly.

"I offered!" the woman holds up her hands. Greenfield presses his lips together.

"Hmm. This degree brought to you by actual dead people! No thank you."

The kid looks exactly like every teenager embarrassed by his parents ever. "Sorry to have bothered you," he says, grabbing them each by the back of their coats and yanking ineffectually.

"He's still not interested," Shaw repeats, hands clenching into irritated fists.

"Can he not speak for himself?" the woman asks.

"I'm still not interested," Cole says flatly, mimicking Shaw's tone perfectly. He's still holding the baseball bat, casual as you please.

"You're missing the opportunity of a lifetime," Greenfield says, shaking his head and tsking like a disappointed teacher.

"Bye," Cole says.

"We'll see you again real soon, Michael," the woman chirps, even as she lets herself be dragged off. "You too, Sameen."

Shaw kicks the door shut, hard. "This is why I don't have friends," she says.

""Hey, did any of that look remotely friendly to you?"

"I really enjoyed the part where she knew my name," Shaw continues. "That's really heartwarming and not at all unnerving."

*

On Saturday Shaw spends an extra half hour at the gym, which means she's almost running late for work and definitely doesn't have time to stop for coffee unless she takes the subway, which would mean she wouldn't have change for coffee anyway. She jogs uphill past the vet's office where she volunteered during her first two years of undergrad, cuts through the gap between the Mafia-owned bakery and the bodega with the old lady who teaches her a new sentence in Spanish every time she comes in. She passes three apartment buildings, a liquor store, a nail salon, and an empty parking lot filled with weeds and beer cans. There's a back alley that runs behind the Prêt and the Salvation Army store-- the one where her friend Jiao got kicked out when the shop clerk saw her buying boy's clothes for her kid. The alley comes out right across the road from the youth centre where Shaw works weekends, and traffic's usually light enough that she doesn't even have to break stride before she can jaywalk right up to the front doors.

The alley's usually pretty deserted, and Shaw makes it a point never to make eye contact with people when she's out, so it's pure chance that has her slowing down and actually paying attention to the argument going on behind the dumpster.

"Come on, baby, the guy is saying, and Shaw rolls her eyes. Looks like some dick trying to make nice with his girlfriend--, she in expensive heels and a silky green dress, he in some sort of security uniform. Shaw almost turns away, but there's something familiar about the woman's profile, and she waits for her to turn so she can get a look at her face.

"I'm not interested," she says, sounding more bored than anything else.

"Oh yeah? I bet my boss will be really interested in whatever the fuck you were doing on his computer."

"Which you won't be telling him about."

"That's right, not if you make it worth my while."

The woman turns, but Shaw's already recognized Cole's hacker not-friend by her voice. She catches sight of Shaw at the same time the guard clearly loses his patience and makes a grab for her, one arm coming around her chest to grope awkwardly at her breast.

"Hi there!" she says, waving at Shaw. The guard looks up.

"Move along," he says to Shaw. "This is none of your business."

"You want some help?" Shaw asks, ignoring the guard entirely. She pulls her pepper spray out of her messenger bag and holds it up.

"Nah, I've got this. But I really appreciate the offer, sweetie."

Shaw shrugs. "Ok. If you're sure."

"Yep!" she drives an elbow hard into the guard's windpipe as she speaks. It's a poorly executed move, but effective. He stumbles backward, swearing. Shaw looks at her watch, and decides the other woman looks like she's got everything in hand.

An hour later, Shaw's in the middle of working through an algebra problem with Jen (probably her favourite kid at the centre, if she were supposed to have favourites) when the woman walks in. Shaw really needs to figure out her name if they're gonna keep running into each other. She strolls over to the table where Shaw and Jen are sitting. She's changed into jeans and a t-shirt with a denim jacket, and she's carrying two paper cups from Prêt, which she plops down in front of them.

"Coffee, black with three sugars. And half coffee, half hot chocolate, with whipped cream. Just a little thank you for your concern earlier, Sameen."

"Thanks?" says Shaw, instead of 'how the fuck do you know my coffee order?' or 'how the fuck do you know where I work?' or 'why do you smell like gun powder?'. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Root," she says. Shaw stares. 'Root' stares back, and Shaw's surprised to find herself looking away first.

"I dealt with that guy," Root says after the silence has become awkward.

Shaw nods. "I assumed, since you're here."

"Right."

"Bye, Root," Shaw says, finally, but it comes out gentler than she intended. Jen is watching them like a tennis match.

"Bye, Sameen," Root says. "Bye, Jenrika."

"Jen," Shaw says, at the same time Jen says

"How do you know my name?"

"I know lots of stuff," Root says cheerfully, and then hurries away. Jen looks unsettled as fuck, and Shaw figures it is pretty weird that Root knew her name.

"She's a computer hacker," Shaw says. "She probably found your name on the Internet."

"I don't think they can actually do all that stuff like in the movie," Jen says, frowning.

"Whatever," Shaw grumbles. "Drink your hot chocolate."

"What if it's poisoned?"

Shaw stares. "Then you won't have to hand in this homework, I guess."

"Hmm," says Jen. Shaw ends up drinking her hot chocolate, too, once she's done the coffee. She doesn't die.

*

Shaw and her mom stopped doing Christmas after her dad died. It wasn't relevant to either of them religiously or culturally, and even at ten years old Shaw was already struggling with the realization that she didn't feel the same sense of magical anticipation that the other kids in her class did around the holidays. This year Shaw doesn't really have the money to fly home at holiday fares, and her mom is buried deep in research for her second book --apparently the university's pushing for a higher publication rate even as they've upped the number of classes she's teaching-- so they've agreed that Shaw will come visit in the spring instead.

Cole's family does Christmas with a grandiose sweeping German five day celebration, all massive fresh cut evergreens and unpronounceable cakes and alcohols and endless numbers of barely familiar old ladies and tiny children crowding into houses decked out in hand-made ornamentation. Shaw went one year. She's still recovering. She usually manages to avoid any Christmas-related bullshit until Cole comes home piled down with leftovers, but this year he betrays her in the worst possible way.

She's sitting on the couch, still warm and languid from the excellent morning sex they'd had and stuffing her face with the banana chocolate pancakes he'd made for her directly after, so she's not really thinking when she nods along agreeably when he asks if she'd mind coming with him to the mall that afternoon.

Six hours later, weighed down by six shopping bags and a crushing loss of faith in the entire human race, she promises her revenge will be merciless. She's legitimately certain she's never actually gone Christmas shopping until now, and it's the sort of experience that not even the giant cinnamon bun she's bonding with can make tolerable. There's no unified sound system throughout the mall, and she's counted seven different versions of 'Deck the Halls' playing in different stores just over the past half hour.

"I really appreciate your help with this," Cole tells her as she licks icing off her fingers and glares at the middle-aged lady hovering over their food court table like she expects them to vacate it for her convenience.

"I'm going to delete your Everquest account," Shaw says darkly.

"In my defence, you agreed." He glances up. "I'm sorry, ma'am, are you lost?"

Shaw drinks the last of her coffee while the would-be table thief stammers awkwardly. They wait until she's walked away before putting on their coats and leaving.

Out in the parking lot the snow has started coming down hard, heavy wet flakes spattering down furiously from the already-dark sky. She turns up the collar of her coat and tugs her hat further down to cover her ears. The bus stop is a good ten minute walk, and she can already feel the handles of the shopping bags digging into her arms through the thick padding of her coat.

They're half way across the parking lot when a car half-skids to a stop right in front of them, tires floundering briefly in the snow. Shaw flips the driver off, not that they'd see, and trudges around the back of the car. The driver's side window rolls down.

"Hey kids," Root says. "Want a ride?"

"Isn't that..." Cole blinks. There are tiny ice crystals forming on the tips of his eyelashes.

"Yes," Shaw says. And then, a little louder, "What's it gonna cost us?"

"Consider it my good deed for the holidays," Root says brightly, and then, quiet enough that Shaw almost doesn't catch it, "Shut up. I'm fucking brimming with Christmas cheer."

"Still not hacking the NSA," Cole says, but he's already fumbling at the door to the back seat with gloved fingers. Shaw waits until he's in and then dumps all of the bags in on top of him before slamming the door and hopping into the front seat. The heater's running high, and there's no Christmas music coming from the radio, so Shaw decides she can forgive Root for being creepily present right outside the mall and also for the delighted smile she throws Shaw's way as she glances over her shoulder to back up.

"Brave, going to the mall when everyone's out indulging their religiously justifiable commercialism," Root says. Shaw's the first to acknowledge that she's not great at reading people, but there's more than the usual levels of judgemental disdain in her voice than accompany most critiques of the holidays by people trying to seem post-modern and jaded.

"Yes, well," Cole says. "My seven nieces and nephews won't take 'capitalism is bad and you should feel bad' as an excuse if there aren't presents under the tree."

"And why were you there, Sameen?" Root asks. "Moral support?" She says this last like it's a ridiculous suggestion, and Shaw wants to go, like, give an inspirational speech to a shitty Little League team or something just on principle.

"She's a good friend like that," Cole says.

"Also he bribed me with orgasms and pancakes."

Root's eyebrows shoot up. "I see."

She doesn't say a word until they're outside of their building an alarmingly short time later (speed limits exist for a fucking reason) and Shaw finds herself on the verge of falling asleep in the dark warm quiet of the car. Cole scrambles out of the car, as soon as they come to a stop, staggering under the weight of all the bags.

"Thank you for the ride," he says, all in one breath, and rushes off toward the door. Shaw supposes Root's driving was probably kind of terrifying, now that she looks back.

"So you and Michael, huh?" Root says before Shaw can get out. She's staring straight ahead out the windshield, her hands at ten and two on the wheel.

"Me and him what?"

"You're together. I wouldn't have guessed."

Shaw frowns. "We're not... Together together. He's my best friend, and we fuck because who has time to go out and find people to have sex with? But I don't really... do emotions. And Cole doesn't do romance. So it's not like anybody's picking out china patterns or whatever."

"Huh," Root says. "What do you mean you don't do feelings?"

Shaw shifts, wishes Root would drop this line of questioning so she could get up to her bottle of cheap scotch and the piles of homework she's still got to do. "I don't feel things like other people," she says, shrugging. "Apparently. Surface level stuff I can do, and I'm OK at anger, but anything more than that I just... Don't care."

"Hmm," says Root. She's turned in her seat to watch Shaw intently and it's actually pretty uncomfortable, like Root's flicking through the pages of Shaw's entire self and taking very efficient notes.

Shaw's done her research. She's sat in the library with the latest DSM and a stack of psychiatry journals and figured herself out, but she's also smart enough to know that there is no good moment to self-identify as a sociopath in an enclosed space with a white person. It's the same awareness that made her start introducing herself as Sam, or just Shaw, on September 12th of her final year of Undergrad.

"Anyway, thanks for the ride," Shaw says, once the silence has gotten super awkward, and definitely doesn't run away.

*

Root pops up outside of Shaw's final class the next day. She links her arm through Shaw's and says, "I'm buying you dinner, come on."

"You need to stop illegally finding shit out about me," Shaw tells her, but she doesn't pull away.

"Aww, but you're so interesting."

"It's fucking creepy. I barely know you."

"Which is why we're having dinner."

Root takes her to the actual fucking Student Union like they're first-year phys-ed majors or something, bouncing along beside her while Shaw orders a burger and fries and milkshake and sliding cash across the counter without ordering anything for herself. Shaw sits at a dirty plastic table and stares at the posters for on-campus events and clubs to join and free STD testing while Root sits across from her, chin on her hand, and watches Shaw eat like it's the most interesting thing she's seen all year.

"Why medicine?" Root asks once Shaw's finished her Berger.

Shaw looks up. "What?"

"Why did you decide to study medicine?"

Shaw shrugs. "It's challenging. You make good money. If you pick an interesting field it's probably not too boring."

"you aren't doing it because you want to help people?"

Shaw glances down at the table. "I don't not want to help people," she says. "It's just not my motivation."

"The challenge, then. And the money."

"I guess. It sounds shitty when you say it like that."

Root shakes her head hard, sending her hair whipping around her face. "No. No Sameen, it sounds entirely reasonable. And honest."

"What about you?" Shaw asks, not because she's interested but because she'd rather listen to Root talk than be hit with more questions. "Why computers?"

Root looks surprised at having her question turned back on her. "Computers have always made more sense to me than people," she says. "Not in that I don't understand the reasons that people do the things they do, but rather the reasons that make computers operate are more rational. More relatable."

Shaw inclines her head. "Yeah, OK. Seems pretty straight forward."

"Really?"

"I already told you what I'm like. A lot of people are motivated by feelings. So I get how it's easier to understand computers. They're predictable."

Root giggles. "It's kind of the opposite, actually, but that's not important." She cocks her head to the side, stays quiet while Shaw squeezes ketchup onto her fries. "So if helping people isn't your goal, why do you work at the youth centre?"

Shaw shoves a handful of fries into her mouth to give herself a couple moments to come up with a reply. "It was the first place that hired me, for one," she says. "And I guess I'd rather spend my days teaching kids about science and stuff than serving bergers to bitchy old people and bratty teenagers. Those kids don't really have anybody else who can help them out with school, and education is important. Besides, it's not just academics I can show them. Somebody always needs to know how to throw a punch and cook a pizza or know what their rights are."

"So you help them because it makes you feel good?" Root speaks with the careful lilting diction of someone who is trying very deliberately to hide an accent, but every now and then Shaw can here a faint drawl sneaking through.

"If you want to be a Machiavellian dick about it, sure," Shaw says. "But if you follow that logic nobody does anything for purely altruistic reasons."

"Exactly," says Root. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I've got to go. Enjoy your milkshake."

Shaw blinks. Root bounces up, wrapping a scarf around her neck as she rushes away. It takes a minute for Shaw to realize that the scarf is hers, and had last been located at the back of Shaw's closet at home.

"What the fuck?" she says, but Root's already gone.

*

"Hey," Shaw says, throwing herself on the foot of Cole's bed and bouncing aggressively. He pulls his headphones off and stares at her over the top of his textbook.

"No, we're still not adopting a dog."

"Shut the fuck up, this is serious." He sets down his book and sits up straight, drawing up his legs so there's room for Shaw to sit cross-legged facing him.

"What's up?"

"You have security cameras in here, right?"

"Yeah. At the door and just outside the windows. Why?"

"Because I think Root broke in to my room."

"Why?" She loves that he doesn't even question the strange accusation.

"She was wearing my scarf when I saw her earlier."

"Ok, but why would she break in? Just to steal your clothes? Because that's reaching horror movie levels of creepy."

Shaw taps a finger against her lip. "Honestly? I wouldn't put it past her. We should make sure nothing else is missing."

"You do that. I'll check my stuff, and see if the cameras picked up anything. But it's not like we've got anything worth stealing."

"You don't have any super secret computer worm that will destroy the government mainframe if released?"

He groans. "I'm going to pretend the last five seconds didn't happen for both of our sakes. And o. The most dangerous thing I've got is a few floppies with a few rejected projects from my IFT internship last summer, but it's nothing sensitive or useful. I was just keeping them as a keepsake, honestly. What about you? You don't get proscription pads yet, right?"

She snorts. "Definitely not."

"Ok. Well we'll see what the security cameras have to say. Don't hit me, but is there a chance it was just an identical scarf? Like, did you buy yours from a store? Could she own the same one?"

"Technically," Shaw says. "But it's pretty distinctive. What're the chances?"

Cole nods. "Just checking."

There is nothing missing in the apartment, and when they go over the camera feeds for the last two weeks there's no sign of anyone coming anywhere near their door or windows. It leaves Shaw kind of unsettled, and that night she goes to sleep with a pocket knife under her pillow.

*

Winter break means Shaw takes on more shifts at the centre, and also that she spends as much time as she can at home and safely away from the aggressive holiday cheer that drenches any public space. To get to her gym she has to walk through a neighbourhood that she's watched fall victim to gentrification over the past four years, and there's nothing more obnoxious than seeing a bright neon sign for 'organic gingerbread tea lattes with your choice of vegan milk!' in the place where she remembers, during her first year in the city, there had been a warm little cafe where she could sit and do homework for hours and where the kid behind the counter refilled her coffee for free and ramble in excited Farsi about his chemistry classes.

Their apartment building remains mostly safe from the holiday infection. Somebody's kid has taped up 'happy Hanukkah' signs in the stairwell, and someone else keeps a dish of candy canes replenished beside the mail boxes. It's at the mailboxes where Shaw's bubble of holiday safety is popped.

She's on her way to work, stopping to check the mail in hopes that her student lone cheque has come in, and instead she finds a brightly wrapped package with her name printed in large capital letters on the address label.

"What the fuck?" she mutters. She doesn't have time to investigate further, so the package lives in her bag until she gets home that evening and is settled in her room with a bowl of pasta and a beer.

The box is wrapped professionally, not a corner out of place, and once she tears through the shiny paper she finds the cardboard box inside still sealed with heavy tape. Scraping it off with her knife, she folds back the sides and pulls away the Styrofoam packing.

It's a cell phone. It's clearly brand new, never been opened, all sleek shiny plastic and small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. When she flips it over she notices it's even got a camera, the little lens staring up innocently at her from the back of the phone. Shaw's not quite sure who the hell would send her a cell phone. She's got a perfectly functional phone-- nothing fancy, a few years old, but it makes and receives calls and that is literally the only things she asks of it. She's never had the urge to update, and anyone who knows her would know that. Naturally, there's no card with the box. Shaw has her suspicions.

It's another three days before she sees Root again, thankfully not wearing her scarf. She's loitering outside reading a newspaper when Shaw gets off work. Jen is leaving the same time Shaw does, dragging out the time until she has to go home as long as possible. Shaw's about to suggest they go grab a hot chocolate, but she sees Root crossing the street towards her and hesitates.

"Oh hey, it's your stalker friend," Jen says, kicking a plastic bag ahead of her along the sidewalk.

"She's not," Shaw grumbles.

"Your friend or your stalker?"

"I'll get back to you," Shaw says, then turns toward Root. "Hey!"

Root perks up, jogging the last few yards towards her, platform heel boots making her already long legs even stupidly longer. "Hi, Sameen!"

Shaw stalks up to her, and, glancing around to make sure there aren't any cops around, she shoves Root up against the nearest wall. "What the fuck were you doing in my apartment?"

Behind her, Jen sucks in a quiet breath, but when Shaw glances back at her she's got her Polaroid camera in one hand and a big solid chunk of ice in the other. Good girl.

"Ooo, Sameen, I love it when you get forceful," Root purrs. It takes Shaw off guard long enough for Root to push Shaw's arm down and catch her hands between her larger, gloved ones. "Now, sweetie, why would you think I've been in your apartment?"

"The scarf," Shaw snaps. "Don't' play dumb, Root. You must've done something to the cameras, I know you were there."

Root tips her head to the side, all wide-eyed innocence. "I can't imagine why I would do a thing like that, Sameen. I always hoped my first time in your bedroom would be.. special."

Jen coughs from behind them. "Do those lines ever actually work?"

Root glares. "Run along, kiddo, isn't it past your bed time?"

Jen looks like she's considering hitting Root over the head with the ice. Shaw would help, but she's pretty sure neither of them are tall enough to get any power behind the blow.

"You need to stop," Shaw tells Root. "And I don't want your fucking phone, either."

It's not until that exact moment that Shaw is absolutely certain that Root did indeed break into her apartment, because she can see the switch from faux-innocence to real confusion. "Phone?"

"I got a camera phone in the mail," Shaw says. "It was Christmasy as shit. No name. I assumed it was you."

"Not me, sweetie," Root says. "Looks like you've got another secret admirer."

"You're not secret," Shaw growls, and it's only then that she realizes Root's still holding her hands. She pulls back angrily, taking a few quick steps away. "I'm serious, Root. You knowing all this shit about me, breaking into my place. It needs to stop, or I'm calling the cops on your ass."

Root pouts. "That hurts, Sameen. I thought we were having fun."

I've seen this movie," says Shaw. "You're fun and charming right until you lock me up in your basement."

Root snorts a laugh. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't actually have a home. So no basements."

"Wow," says Shaw. "That absolutely makes it worse. Bye, Root."

Root sighs, and stays leaned up against the brick wall until Shaw and Jen turn the corner and she's no longer in sight.

*

The next afternoon, when Shaw's withdrawing money from an ATM, she requests 40 dollars and the machine pumps out 400. She glances around, but there's no one close enough to notice, and when she looks up at the security camera, the red light is off. She takes the money. She's not a fucking saint.

Cole leaves for his family's place upstate on the eighteenth. The apartment is weirdly quiet, so Shaw walks the fifteen blocks to the library to study. There's a giant Christmas tree in the lobby, and she has to navigate around a group of little kids cutting out paper snowflakes on the carpet by the checkout desk. She takes a table in the far back where she can spread out her books without anybody complaining or trying to steal her space. Somebody has left a magazine on the corner of the table, and she glances down at the shiny-toothed smiles of Nathan Ingram, Harold Finch, and Arthur Claypool beaming glossily up at her from the cover. The poster-children of corporate America, all do-it-yourself genius and bootstraps mentality reminding her of what she can achieve if she just tries in full colour. She wonders if she could videotape herself burning the magazine and call it performance art.

She's been there for a few hours before Root sits down beside her. She refuses to acknowledge her at first, but the way she's practically vibrating with nervous energy finally drags her attention away from her book.

"What do you want?" she asks.

Root clasps her hands together on the table. She's wearing black nail polish and a bunch of spiky silver and black bracelets over spiderweb arm-warmers. Shaw is embarrassed for her.

"I wanted to say," she says, very carefully, like she's reading a script. "That if I had hypothetically broken into your apartment for reasons that don't need to be explored at this juncture, and if I hypothetically stole your scarf, I understand that this was morally ambiguous at best and also a violation of your privacy and I am very sorry."

Shaw stares, unimpressed. "Did you write that yourself?"

"I'm trying, Sameen," Root snaps, and then just as quickly she's back to awkwardly charming dork. "I was going to bring you coffee, but they don't let you have food or drink in the library. I thought maybe I could take you out when you're done here?"

Shaw exhales, very slowly. She really should say no, but Root is hot and maybe possibly into girls, and more importantly into Shaw, and it's been a long fucking time since Shaw's been with a woman and she kind of misses it. Not enough to get all butched up and figure out what bars are the hot new place to be seen in New York, but enough that Root's awkwardly probably-fake apology is kind of cute, in an idiotic, still vaguely creepy sort of way.

"Public place," Shaw says. "And you shut the fuck up while I study."

"Absolutely!" Root chirps, and she promptly sits back and crosses one leg over the other and stares. At Shaw. Silently. Shaw shoves the magazine at her.

"Don't be creepy, Root," she warns. Root stares down at the magazine darkly.

"Ugh," she says. "Look who got another fucking front page."

"I figured you'd be a fan," Shaw says despite herself.

"Not exactly," Root mutters. "Arthur's OK, if I had to choose. But Finch and Ingram are arrogant, paranoid children playing God."

"You have some feelings," Shaw observes. "I was thinking of burning it later."

Root's eyes light up. "Ooo, yes please."

"We'll see how coffee goes," Shaw says, but she's got a feeling she's already committed.

*

Root buys her a fancy caramel coffee concoction that costs more money than Shaw would ever pay for a non-alcoholic drink, and interrogates her understanding of morality and ethics while they walk through Soundview Park. Root quotes philosophers and theorists like she's got an entire library in her head, which is hot for about five minutes before it just gets obnoxious.

They find a snowbank hidden off the main path a bit and Shaw holds up the magazine while Root sets it on fire with the lighter she pulls out of her back pocket. A pack of cigarettes pokes out after it, and Shaw rolls her eyes as far back as they'll go when she sees they're cherry cloves. Root giggles while she watches the glossy paper around the three men on the cover crinkle and fall away as flakes of ash, and Shaw reconsiders taking her home for a good ten minutes. Root backs her up against a tree and kisses her as soon as they've kicked snow over the ashes, and Shaw's taken aback so much that Root's got her tongue in her mouth and a knee between her thighs and her hands pinned above her head before her brain kicks back into gear. She struggles, tries to push Root off and receives a sharp bite to her ear for the effort. It's hot, but it's also kind of worrying, and there's part of Shaw that feels on-edge, uncomfortable.

"Hey," she says firmly. "Stop."

Root steps back immediately. She doesn't shy away, but she's very clear in her retreat, hands open at her sides. Shaw feels a bit better after that, but also her feet are fucking freezing and they're still out in public where anybody could see them.

"You want to go back to mine?" Shaw asks. "And we can, you know, do some negotiating so I don't beat the shit out of you in self-defence."

"That sounds great," Root says, and Shaw gets the suspicion that it was at least partly in response to the idea of Shaw beating the shit out of her.

Before they get to Shaw's building she tells Root to wait outside and steps into the bodega on the corner. She phones Joss Carter, because Joss is the only person who is in the city, cool with Shaw being queer, and who understands the dangers of the police for non-white folks. She and Shaw had hooked up pretty regularly in late 2000, back when Shaw was still actively in the scene. She's one of the two people who have actually been into the same sort of shit Shaw's into (Cole being the other). Joss wouldn't hurt her, but she was more than happy to take charge. There'd been a couple excellent months where she'd been fucking them both --Cole would hurt her but had absolutely no interest in being on top-- but then Carter had gone into the police academy and also back into the closet, and there'd been almost a year where Shaw hadn't seen her at all. It's good, now, being able to call her up and say 'listen, I'm taking a girl home and she's probably not a psycho but just in case I'm gonna call you in a couple hours to confirm I'm still alive.'

She calls Cole, too, and leaves him a voicemail letting him know she's gonna fuck Root and she's gonna use protection and she's not gonna let her anywhere near their computers. It's common courtesy.

Root's exactly where she left her when she comes back out onto the street, and she skips alongside Shaw all the way to her building and up the five flights of stairs to the apartment.

"Is this the part where I say I really want to tie you up?" Root asks, pressing up against Shaw and leaning down to murmur in her ear while Shaw unlocks the door.

"Maybe next time," Shaw says, but she lets Root push her inside and shove hands up under her winter coat to palm her breasts.

Root is by turns goofily affectionate, gracefully sexy, and methodically cruel in her touches. Shaw falls back on her bed under the other woman's weight and lets herself be man-handled out of her clothes, tugs Root's hair hard in reward when she bites at Shaw's breasts, fights Root's attempts to hold her hands down just enough to leave scratches. Root sticks two fingers in her mouth and then, with no preamble, reaches between Shaw's legs and pushes them inside of her. All the air feels punched out of Shaw, and she finds herself gripping Root's free arm tightly while tiny shivers chase themselves through her body.

"Shh, you're OK," Root murmurs, resting her hand over the centre of Shaw's rib cage. Finally, Shaw nods, and Root slides her fingers out, starts rubbing gentle circles over Shaw's clit.

"Harder," Shaw tells her.

"Be patient," Root says lightly.

"I do want to come sometime tonight," Shaw retorts. Root scrapes her nails down Shaw's torso sudden and hard, leaving red lines in her wake.

"With that attitude you won't," she says, sing-song.

"Ugh," says Shaw, but it comes out a little breathless. "You're gonna be fucking annoying in bed, too, aren't you?"

Root pinches her clit, hard, and Shaw's entire body jerks. "It's part of my charm."

"It's part of something."

"I definitely wanna tie you up," Root muses, still stroking around Shaw's clit, occasionally dipping a finger inside of her. "Maybe up on your knees facing the headboard so I can mark up your back all pretty. I bet you take pain beautifully." she rests her chin on Shaw's upper arm, watching her hand where it moves between her legs. "Ooo, maybe get your hands behind your back and put you on your knees on the floor and have you eat me out. Put a spreader bar between your knees so you can't get any pressure on yourself, just leave you squirming down there while you got me off."

Shaw has literally never found dirty talk anything but ridiculous. This is a new experience for her, the way her body is hot and flushed and her cunt is clenching desperately just at Root's words.

She speeds up her movements, presses two, then three long fingers inside of Shaw fast and hard and starts driving Shaw towards an orgasm that seems to sneak up on her out of nowhere, leaving her shaking against Root and sucking in air like she's drowning. Root looks entirely too pleased with herself.

Shaw turns her head a bit so she's looking up at Root. "How do you want me?" she asks, low and deliberately submissive. Root's entire body trembles, and she bites her lip hard.

"I can think of a hundred different ways," she says. "Ooo, yes, that."

Shaw arches an eyebrow. Root scrambles out of her own clothes, tosses a leg over Shaw's hips so she's straddling her.

"How do you feel about me riding your face?" she asks, like she's asking how Shaw feels about milk in her coffee.

"As long as we use a dental dam I feel really great about it," Shaw answers. Root grins.

"Awesome."

Shaw rifles through her nightstand until she finds a little plastic packet. She opens it with one hand, dragging her other up over the jutting edges of Root's ribs to cup a breast, thumb rubbing circles over her nipple until it hardens.

Root squirms a bit, catches Shaw's hand and pushes it back down to the bed. There's something complicated happening on her face, and Shaw twists her hand around so she can rub at the hollow of Root's palm with her fingertips.

"Fuck," Root mutters, frustrated.

"That's the general idea," Shaw agrees. Root laughs a bit, but she still looks kind of upset.

"Do you not wanna do this?" Shaw asks. It seems kind of late for gay panic, but Root's weird so who knows?

"I do," Root says quickly. "Just. Don't... You don't need to touch me. Aside from, you know, the obvious."

Shaw very deliberately stretches her hands up above her head, looks up at Root, licks her lips. Root smiles down at her, a small, shy little curve of her mouth, and then she's knee-walking up over Shaw's body and Shaw focuses in on making Root come as hard as she made Shaw.

Later Root wraps herself in Shaw's extra quilt and lies with her head in her lap while Shaw calls Joss to check in. Once she's off the phone, Shaw isn't quite sure what to do with her hands, so she slides down until Root's head is on her chest and drags the other blanket up over herself.

"Sorry," Root mutters. Shaw hums a question from behind the book she'd grabbed off the nightstand.

"sorry I got all weird," Root clarifies. "Sometimes my brain just, gets weird about the whole... having a body thing. It feels like being stuck in this... thing and it's everywhere around you and it feels so much and you have to think about moving all the parts and..." She shrugs, head rolling side to side on Shaw's chest. sorry. I didn't want to make sex weird, it doesn't happen all the time."

"It's fine," Shaw says. She doesn't really get it, but Root sounds like she needs Shaw to be cool about this.

"Thanks," Root mutters, and then she sort of falls asleep for a couple hours. Shaw's starting to get sort of uncomfortable and also she really needs to pee by the time Root sits up, rubbing her eyes. She fiddles with something behind her ear, then starts hunting for her clothes on the floor.

"Do you, uh, have a place to stay?" Shaw asks, Root's words from the other night coming back to her.

"Yep," Root nods. "I'm staying with Jason's foster-parents while I'm here, which is exactly as awful as it sounds, but apparently it would be unforgivable to run away and rent a hotel room instead."

Shaw doesn't ask more than that. She and Root aren't dating, it's not like she has the right to ask for her life story. She walks her to the door, lets Root kiss her good night, actually nods agreement when she says "see you soon!". Over all, it's a surreal day, but she's not complaining.

*

December 21st Root actually knocks at Shaw's door like a normal human being. Shaw rewards her with a few minutes of kissing where she lets Root press her up against the table and makes sure to bite Root's lips until she tastes blood. Root pulls back, finally, and grins down at Shaw. She's practically vibrating.

"Have you ever gone ice skating?" she asks.

"No," Shaw says immediately. "We are not."

"Aww, Sameen, don't be like that. Don't you want to go skating at Rockefeller Centre?"

"I really, really don't."

"Oh," Root says, frowning. "Ok."

"What brought this on?" Shaw asks.

Root perches on the back of the sofa. "I wanted to take you out somewhere, but most date ideas sound spectacularly banal or agonizing."

"And skating didn't?"

"You get to run around with knives on your feet," Root says. "It's ridiculous. And I've never done it."

Shaw shrugs. "It's not all that exciting. You'd probably spend most of the time on your ass."

"At least come for a walk with me," Root says. She's all dressed up, high leather boots and a skirt that flares out around her knees and a long black wool coat that looks like it cost more than Shaw makes in six months. Her eyeliner is sharp and sparkly, and her movement is all restless energy, barely contained. Shaw watches her intently, pushing herself off the table.

"Two things," she says. "First, I'm gonna make up thermoses of coffee and whisky so we don't' freeze out there. And two, I really wanna go down on you, you cool with that? I promise I wont' even fuck up your clothes."

Root's focus snaps to her, laser intent. "Absolutely," she says. "Where would you like me?"

"Just up against that wall," Shaw says, pleased. Root settles her back against the wall, spreads her feet wide apart.

"Ok, Sameen. Come here." Shaw goes. Root smells like expensive perfume, something sweet and spicy, and the leather of her boots is cool against Shaw's cheek. Her skin tastes like soap and there's only a thin pair of black silk underwear to push aside before Shaw can press her mouth against her. Root isn't wet when Shaw starts, and the fabric of her skirt keeps catching ridiculously in Shaw's hair, and Shaw only realizes once she's started that she's gonna have to go get tested again now. It's totally worth it.

It's dark by the time they actually leave the apartment. Root drags her on the subway into Manhattan because she hates her life, probably.

"I'm not this kind of masochist," Shaw mutters into Root's ear as yet another screaming toddler races past her while clusters of tourists snap photo after photo. Root tugs her along the sidewalk, linking their gloved fingers together. Everywhere around them the street is lit up with advertisements in neon and glittering Christmas displays. She can hear at least three different Christmas carols at any given time, and every time a bus or taxi rushes past grey slush splatters her legs. Root keeps walking, brisk like she's got a destination in mind and fast enough that Shaw has to half-jog to keep up with her longer stride, but after half an hour Shaw pulls her off to the edge of the sidewalk.

"Hey," she says. "Where are we going?"

"Just... around," Root says, but her voice is a bit too high, her smile falsely bright. Shaw squeezes her hand.

"It's crowded as fuck," she says. "Are you actually enjoying this?"

Root clenches her hand hard on Shaw's, and her eyes dart frantically around, refusing to settle. "It's usually good," she says. "It's so good, being in a crowd with that one other person. Knowing that we're so much better than the rest of them, knowing that they're all around me and it doesn't matter a damned bit what they think of me because I'm on such a different level, because I'm with someone who matters--"

Shaw thinks for one horrifying second that Root's gonna start crying, but she shakes her head like she's shaking water out of her ears and her smile returns, still forced but slightly less manic. "Sorry, sweetie. I keep fucking this up."

"I'm not holding you to some kind of standard," Shaw says. "I would've been happy to stay at home and drink and fuck."

Root laughs, a weak, gasping little thing that she chokes off half way through. "I know. I just wanted to see-- I really like you, Sameen. Which is incredibly rare, and I want to do this right, but everything that's involved is so... it's all infected. I didn't want this to be infected, I wanted to keep it behind a firewall, but I didn't know how to have you and not have you at the same time."

"You've either drunk too much or not enough whisky," Shaw says. "Come on, let's go back to my place."

Root follows docilely, and once they've got seats on the subway she presses her shoulder against Shaw's. The train car is pretty empty, so Shaw ducks under Root's arm, tucking herself in against her side and hoping that her physicality can provide the reassurance that she can't with words.

"Sorry," she says again, quiet and twisting her hands together in her lap. Shaw doesn't reply because she's not sure what Root's looking for.

When they get back to Shaw's apartment Root unzips her boots and curls up in a ball on the far side of Shaw's bed, where she falls asleep for a few hours. Later, after she wakes up, Shaw makes them both soup and they watch The Matrix on Shaw's shitty little TV. Root ties her to the bed just like she'd promised, spends actual hours pulling a variety of overwhelming physical sensations out of Shaw's body until she's a shaking, practically incoherent mess. Root pets her hair until she falls asleep, and when she wakes up she feels warm and peaceful and worn out like she hasn't in a long time.

Root makes what are possibly supposed to be pancakes in the morning. Shaw finds her standing in the kitchen in her skirt and one of Shaw's hoodies, poking a spatula helplessly at a smoky mess in the frying pan.

"Your stove is broken," she tells Shaw, without turning around.

"The stove is fine, for fucks sake, Root, how did you even manage this?"

"Pancakes are a thoughtful morning-after gesture," Root says petulantly, like she's reading from a manual. "Also, I took the batteries out of your smoke alarm. They're on the table."

Shaw pushes Root out of the way, reaching over to turn off the stove. "You need to stop trying to hack dating. and also cooking. Please stop trying cooking. Like, permanently."

"So we are dating?" Root asks, perking up. "I wasn't sure."

Shaw's trying to decide if it's worth running the pan under water or if she should just leave it all to harden. "I don't fucking know, Root. You kind of stalked me. And you just ruined breakfast. Ask again in like, three weeks."

"Ok," says Root seriously, like she's adding the date to her mental calendar. Shaw rolls her eyes.

They wind up going out for breakfast. Root drags her half way across the city to a cafe on the second floor of an old house where Root drinks six cups of coffee and eats a tiny dish of fruit and Shaw marvels at the ridiculous shit white kids will spend fifty bucks on. Shaw's bacon is made of soy and their waitress has bright green hair and tells them they're adorable at least four times. There are paper tablecloths on all the tables, with mismatched boxes of pencils and crayons tucked in beside the salt and sugar packets. Bored waiting for Root to come back from the bathroom and increasingly conscious of the friendly glances from fellow diners that threaten to become small talk, Shaw starts doodling. She doesn't draw Root or anything equally nauseating, but she still winds up almost spilling her coffee when Root fucking pops up out of nowhere, leaning in close over the back of her chair.

"I didn't know you could draw."

"I'm full of surprises," Shaw deadpans, and casually slides her napkin over the drawing. Root goes back to her side of the table, dragging an unnecessarily affectionate palm over Shaw's shoulderblades as she goes.

*

"So you're sleeping with Root," Cole says, when he calls later that afternoon. Shaw's out running and regretting it fiercely as her feet get progressively more numb.

"Apparently," she says.

"You remember the part where she was actively creepy for weeks."

"Believe me, I remember it. It gets better. She asked if we're dating this morning."

Cole chokes on whatever he's drinking and Shaw crosses the street while she waits for him to stop coughing. "Oh wow. That's... a thing. What did you say?"

"I told her to ask again in three weeks, which I'm pretty sure she took seriously."

"Ok, and what're you gonna tell her in three weeks?" Cole asks. He's barely restraining his serious voice, she can tell.

"I don't know. If we're still fucking at that point, I suppose it counts as dating."

"Nope," Cole says. "It doesn't. I've looked this up."

"If it makes her happy to say we are, I don't see the harm," Shaw says.

"Hahha," says Cole. "You will. At the risk of sounding like a teenaged girl, do you, you know, like her?"

Shaw shrugs, even though he can't see her. "I don't particularly dislike her."

"That's... not really a great start."

"It's all I've got," she says. "I'm not opposed to hanging out with her or fucking her. She's really good at sex, incidentally, I'll let you know if she's up for a threesome at some point."

Cole snorts a laugh. "Maybe hold off on that question for a couple months. ...not forever, though, definitely do ask."

Shaw chuckles. "I don't see the harm. We'll date or whatever, and if I get sick of her I'll break it off."

"And in a year when she expects more? Moving in together, passionate confessions, meeting the parents, joint savings accounts..."

"Stop projecting your bad experiences."

"I'm just offering forewarning."

"I told her I don't do feelings. And she's... kind of weird as fuck. I'm pretty sure she won't be asking to move in together. Asking me to help her hide a body, maybe. Besides, she can't make pancakes, so if I move in with her you're moving right the fuck along with me."

"You say the sweetest things. Either way, please don't' get murdered before February, I can't make rent without you."

"I'll do my best," she says.

*

Christmas Eve the youth centre has a pancake breakfast. Shaw is too busy doing dishes and serving food to actually get to eat any of it, which should probably leave her feeling altruistic or something but mostly leaves her really fucking hungry. She's bundled up in the hideous Christmas sweater that Cole's oma knitted for her last year, but the temperatures outside had plunged over night and even with the heaters running at full blast her extremities remain icy.

Jen shows up when most of the food is already gone. She waves at Shaw but goes over to help some of the younger kids making construction paper holiday cards. Shaw spends an hour sorting out what the fuck they're supposed to do with the thirty bottles of unopened pancake syrup, and who actually brought the griddle and why they'd left without it, and if anyone has a key to the ED's office so they can use the printer to print out their holiday hours because apparently nobody thought to do so over the entire month of December.

By one o'clock, when they close up and everyone has tromped off into the freezing cold with falsely-enthusiastic holiday wishes, Shaw is fucking starving. Jen comes over to shelter against the wall of the building with her while she's trying to decide if she's got enough food at home to last the next couple days.

"So how's your stalker?" Jen asks.

"She's not my stalker, kid," Shaw says, rolling her eyes.

"Uh huh?"

""Really," says Shaw. A car pulls up in front of them and Root pokes her head out of the window.

"Hi, kids."

"Shut the fuck up," Shaw says before Jen can even open her mouth.

"I spent all morning in Jersey," Root says when Shaw comes closer to the car window. "And I can't get drunk yet, so I wanted to come see you as my reward to myself."

"Good to know I'm the consolation prise to alcohol."

"Jersey, Sameen. Do you want to do lunch? Your friend can come, too."

"If you're paying. And she definitely can't, that's unethical on a whole bunch of levels and I don't wanna get fired."

"Way to ruin Christmas, Shaw," Root teases.

Jen huffs indignantly from where she's come up beside Shaw. "Ruining Christmas is when the Orekhovskaya shoots out the windows of your grandma's car on the way to church. Getting in a car with a creepy stranger doesn't cut it."

"I take your point," Root says. "If it makes you feel better my mom once forgot Christmas entirely and then almost burned the house down trying to cook an apology turkey drunk on New Years. I think one of the firemen actually called Social Services that time, not that anybody followed up."

"As touching as these Christmas memories are, it's fucking freezing out here," Shaw says. "You headed home, kid?"

Jen shrugs. "Maybe. The mall is still open, I might go hang out there for a while." She hitches her back pack higher on her shoulders. "Enjoy your date."

"It's not--" Shaw starts automatically, and then freezes because it actually fucking might be. Root beams. Shaw stomps around to the passenger side door, sliding into the warm interior of the car in relief.

"I have pictures of you," Jen's telling Root, very seriously. "And I wrote down your licence plate number."

"Noted," Root says, clearly trying not to smile. Jen glares.

"Hey, Shaw," she says, leaning practically in the window. "Don't use the phone she gave you. I read on a message board how hackers can get into new phones wirelessly and turn on the camera and mic whenever they want."

"Ok, Nancy Drew," Root says. "I think Shaw can take care of herself. She starts rolling up the window, forcing Jen to hop back quickly.

"So why Jersey?" Shaw asks as Root pulls back out into traffic.

"Work," she says absently. "Hey, wanna skip lunch to go back to your place and fuck?"

"What do you even do? And no, fuck that, you promised me food."

Root sighs dramatically. Shaw can't help but notice that her leather jacket is nowhere close to appropriate for the weather. "I'm an independent contractor," she says. "Boring."

"Like building websites? Software engineering?"

"Bit of everything," Root says airily. "The important part is that it pays well. Speaking of which, floggers or paddles? Or both? I was gonna pick some stuff up, but I wasn't' sure if you have an experiential preference."

"Jesus Christ, Root," Shaw mutters. "I have no idea. I've never gotten fancy with this shit."

"Well," Root says, pleased. "We're gonna have so much fun figuring it out together."

They do wind up going back to Shaw's, but Shaw still makes her stop for takeout on the way.

*

Shaw books her flights to go see her mom in April the day before Cole gets back from his family Christmas. She's perched on the edge of her desk chair, twisting the phone cord around her finger impatiently and being very careful not to let her back touch the back of the chair. In one ear the airline's hold music crackles static and cheerful guitars, and in the other she can hear the faint music from the little hand-held game Root is playing from her pile of blankets on the couch. Only the top of her head pokes out from beneath the quilts, hair messy and flyaway. Shaw pulls her own blanket a bit higher across her front. She's cold, but the ointment that Root had applied with mathematical precision over the marks on her back hasn't dried, and she doesn't want to smear it all over the blanket.

"Thank you for waiting, Miss Shaw," the woman on the other end of the phone chirps. "It looks like the economy section on that flight is completely booked up. Would you mind upgrading to first class? Free of charge, of course."

"Uh," says Shaw. "No. I wouldn't mind at all."

"Wonderful, thank you. I'm really not sure what happened there, our system was showing a half empty flight ten minutes ago."

"computers are unreliable," Shaw offers, just for the pleasure of Root's indignant little squeak.

She finishes up on the phone, then climbs over the back of the couch and plops herself down right about where she supposes Root's feet are somewhere beneath the blankets. Root kicks ineffectually at her, but Shaw just settles herself more firmly.

"How the hell did you manage to hack the airline from all the way over here?"

Root's eyes peek over the top of the blanket, all wide and innocent. "It'd be literally impossible. I don't know what you're talking about."

"I just got free first class seats."

"Lucky."

"Because the rest of the plane suddenly filled up."

"Hmm."

"Root."

Root squirms more upright, setting aside her game and resettling the blankets around her shoulders. "I didn't do anything, Sameen. Why do you want to look a gift horse in the mouth?"

"Because it's suspicious."

"It's nice."

"It's probably gonna come back to bite me in the ass."

"Look, Shaw," Root says, suddenly serious. "Almost the entire time we've known each other, I've been trying really hard to just... be myself. Not to play a role or manipulate the situation. This is... really new for me. I've only liked a very few people, and I've only felt like this for one other person. Which ended... poorly. So I don't want to mess this up. But that also means there're things I can't tell you. Because I'm not lying."

"Well that's... Incredibly ominous," Shaw says. Root bites her lip hard.

"Sorry."

Shaw sighs. "It's fine. Just... look, Root. I told you how I am. I'm not gonna be able to return all those... feelings. You picked basically the worst person to have special feelings about."

"I know," Root says. "I wouldn't want you to change. You aren't driven by your emotions. It's one of the best things about you."

Shaw has never heard anyone say that. Sure, people have told her that the way she is makes her better at specific things, in particular roles, but no one has applied that positive association to just her as a person. "Thanks?" she says, awkwardly. Root snuggles back down in her blankets.

*

Root calls her long-distance in early January, so late it's early.

"Hey," Shaw says. "Where are you calling from?"

"Um," says Root. "I'll tell you when I get back. I'm kind of trying to rescue my friend Daniel from an underground government bunker before they throw his body in a ditch."

Shaw rolls her eyes. "You're hilarious. Fine, don't tell me. What's up?"

"It's been three weeks," Root says. She sounds like she's running, all out of breath and jerky.

"Seriously?"

"You said to ask again."

"And you couldn't have called at a time that isn't two AM?"

"I'm living in the moment," says Root. "You never know when the next moment might be your last and all that-- Jesus Christ, hang on sweetie."

"You OK?"

Root is quiet for a minute, and there's a series of rustling noises, followed by a large splash. "Ok," she says. "Ok, sorry about that. Anyway, back to the important questions."

"You honestly want to have this conversation now?"

"I don't want a conversation, as much as I do love hearing you talk. Just a yes or no will do."

Shaw flops back on her bed, sighing loudly. "I guess so, yeah. If you really want to be dating, whatever that means. Then I guess we are."

"Really?" Root sounds elated. "Sameen, I'm so happy. I'm so glad."

"Uh, that's good," Shaw says, uncertain. Root laughs.

"Yes. It's very good. And for the record, I don't usually like penises, but Cole's intelligent enough that I can overlook it for a threesome."

"I'm not asking how you knew about that," Shaw says. "Six hundred militant lesbians just got mysteriously furious, by the way."

"Don't be rude, Sameen. You people and your gender. It's super cute for values of cute that mostly mean gross and antiquated if occasionally useful."

"I'm going to bed now, Root."

"Ok, sweetie. I should be back in town by Saturday, we should go to the zoo."

"Why-- No, never mind, I don't care, don't tell me."

"Sleep well," Root says. "And for the record, Sameen? I have no idea what officially dating is supposed to look like, either. But we're gonna have so much fun figuring it out together.


End file.
